With the rising costs and environmental concerns associated with fossil fuels, renewable energy sources have become increasingly important. The development of renewable fuel sources provides a means for reducing the dependence on fossil fuels. Accordingly, many different areas of renewable fuel research are currently being explored and developed.
With its low cost and wide availability, biomass has increasingly been emphasized as an ideal feedstock in renewable fuel research. Consequently, many different conversion processes have been developed that use biomass as a feedstock to produce useful biofuels and/or specialty chemicals. One of the useful products that may be derived from biomass is a liquid product commonly referred to as “bio-oil.”
Bio-oil may be processed into transportation fuels, hydrocarbon chemicals, and/or specialty chemicals. However, most bio-oils that are produced contain high amounts of oxygenated molecules. Due to these high oxygen contents, the bio-oils can be immiscible or incompatible with conventional refinery streams, thereby inhibiting their ability to be processed and refined in conventional refineries. In an attempt to remedy this problem, highly-oxygenated bio-oils have been subjected to various upgrading processes, such as hydrotreatment, in order to lower their oxygen contents. Although these deoxygenated bio-oils may show improved miscibility with conventional refinery streams, such upgrading process can be expensive and not cost-effective.
Accordingly, there is a need for an improved process for making a bio-oil composition that is more miscible with conventional refinery streams.